Defense industry news, analysis and commentary

ComDef2012

WASHINGTON: The strategic guidance issued to much fanfare by President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last January is getting a “relook” because the senior leadership has “found some problems” with it, according to the Defense Department’s head of acquisition, Frank Kendall.

What are the holes? As one might expect, Kendall didn’t outline them, so we went to one of the Pentagon’s top strategy resources, Andrew Krepinevich, head of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment and graduate of Andy Marshall’s Office of Net Assessment. (For those who don’t know, Marshall is a Pentagon legend whose office helps determine our strategy.) Keep reading →

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[updated 3:00 pm with Kendall comments] WASHINGTON: If history is any guide, the cuts to the defense budget will prompt a new wave of acquisition reform — and if history is any guide, we’ll get it wrong, again.

Frank Kendall, the undersecretary for acquisitions, logistics, and technology, rolled out a “Better Buying Power” initiative in September 2010, and yesterday at the National Press Club he promised he would soon roll out a new and improved version of BBP that built on the lessons of the last two years. But it’s an uphill battle. Keep reading →

“We’re all pulling together because we have to,” Maj. Gen. Mark Bowman, the US Army officer who is now chief information officer for the Joint Staff, said at the ComDef 2012 conference at the National Press Club. “The value of cybercrime today is close to eclipsing the value of the illegal drug trade.” Keep reading →

When Defense Security Cooperation Agency staff put together a briefing for DSCA deputy director Richard Genaille to give today at the National Press Club, new Foreign Military Sales (FMS) for fiscal year 2012 were at $64 billion. “It’s now $65 billion and will probably go up more in this fiscal year,” Genaille told the audience this morning at the ComDef 2012 conference. All told, Genaille said, “the FMS portfolio is valued at $385 billion dollars,” and supports “at least 3.5 million jobs, [at] a conservative estimate.” Keep reading →